"I still don't understand my role," Rafe commented, unable to stop himself.

"And perhaps you shouldn't. It is too early yet," Noid said. "You don't have the full picture. You don't know, shouldn't know anymore about mantles than you already do. You don't know how to find the framework yet. You're going to be stuck in your homeworld for a bit anyway. No one expects an F-ranked human to escape the boundary that easily."

"And it's not a totally bad thing too," Sam said. "The girl will know of you once you leave here. It is safe to assume you will be a wanted man in the multiverse before your world even officially joins it. It is not a terrible idea to grow your power slowly in the meantime."

"But how will I do that? I need a lot more experience than most other people, and a planet going through a tutorial seems a bit…"

"Hah!" Granderel laughed. "All ready to explore the wider multiverse, are we? You have to crawl before you walk, kid. The tutorial will teach you a lot of things, though not everything by a long margin. There is always more to learn."

"But sometimes it's not bad to walk too fast and stumble or fall," Liam said. "You always learn more from mistakes."

"And so the reason we told you of the Enchantress' past," Sendriel chimed in.

Or forced her to tell me about it, Rafe said, somewhere in the privacy of his mind.

"She tried to spur you to growth by using your animosity towards her as some kind of fuel," Sam said. "We would rather our two youngest didn't fight. Especially over a simple misunderstanding."

"What misunderstanding?" Rafe asked, barely able to hope. Then he blinked. "Also, how much has this information cost me? I do remember something about merits from my first trial."

"Nothing," the Enchantress said. "It will cost you nothing. While I've given you information, it was to ask for your aid. It shall be considered an equal exchange."

Rafe frowned, not really understanding the logic.

"You can bend the rules when you make 'em," Sam grumbled, her voice full of false bitterness.

Rafe was starting to see it. Where he'd misunderstood the duo's, no, the whole gang's, relationship. Their dynamic was peculiar to say the least, and at times they argued, and they bickered, and they sometimes probably even fought. But they got back together in the end.

They had been born during different eras, were very much of differing ages and personalities, but if he squinted hard enough, Rafe was sure they could be considered a party of adventurers. Overpowered for sure, but a party none-the-less.

Granderel had told him of how none of them had wished to be the strongest. But they had been. And they had left their families and friends behind. Not of their own choices. Skyholm, all of them, had blitzed through the ranks and achieved great feats on their own.

If he frowned hard enough, Rafe could imagine them as a team of F-ranked adventurers. The warrior, the mage, the all rounder, the healer, the thief, the craft's woman. Just an adventurer party. And a family.

In truth Skyholm hadn't grown together. They had been born thousands of years apart, at times even millions. They had met each other only in passing. Helping each other grow only as long as their journeys intersected. And then they'd go on their way, have their own adventure and let the river lead them where it may.

Rafe watched the Enchantress lightly elbow the thief, and he saw Liam reprimand them. And he saw Noid look away with a snort. And Granderel had his hands folded over his chest and his head swiveling from side to side, studying the others like they were some kind of meat. Sendriel sighed and went to take a seat, her role seemingly finished.

Rafe still wasn't sure what to make of the Enchantress. There was still that bias. Was she someone to fear? To respect? Was she just another person? And she'd said he had no choice before. They had told him the mission this time at least, but they hadn't asked him to accept it. They just wanted him to have a few facts, as Noid had pointed out. He did not need to make a decision then.

As he studied them, Rafe realised why he hadn't noticed the dynamic was more friendly than he'd first thought. They were family. And what did he know about family?

****

"So…" the enchantress spoke. "The children…well they are protected. From time and everything. They are basically in stasis. But they have come alive a few times. One of them was when you came to the trial. In fact…" the enchantress looked around at the others, her expression nervous. "In fact this time was most notable, as the system itself was forced to come and investigate. I even believe you managed to see a few manifestations of them, the children. Anyway another effect their stirring had was that the veil over Elysium thinned. It does that periodically, so not totally the children's fault.

"This time it was bad though. Souls escaped. And not the usual ones where a few people reincarnate or whatever. This time a whole multitude of souls did. And they all went into the same world, which is not really a world. Yeah. So… that's what happened," the woman finished nervously.

"In short, what she means is your version of Aeon is a unique little quirk of our trial now. We don't know how it's going to develop or change, but we cannot destroy it," Noid said. "It is still not a real world, but the people there are almost real."

"We are going to study it," Liam said, more to the point. "Worry not though. We will most probably not destroy it. You could even visit it in the future."

"Just bear in mind this is not something we are holding over your head. We appreciate you are attached to the world, but we will not force you to do our will in order to save it or some such notion," Sendriel said.

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"I see," Rafe said, looking somewhere past the Enchantress' shoulder.

He still wasn't sure how he felt about the woman. At least Aeon had been guaranteed safety for now. He still had to find a way to return after he left, and to travel the void on his own he needed to be sufficiently strong.

There was the problem of Devila as well but he preferred to keep that as far from his mind as possible.

"Now then, you do not have infinite merits, so I'll just say what we would have said later," Liam started. "About the aura training floor…"

Rafe tensed at that, remembering a time when he could not feel or see or hear or smell. The only difference between him and a rock was that he could think.

"We only used that room because your aura skill was closest to a threshold. It would have been different if it was another skill," the god continued. Then he breathed. "You remember the skill upgrading, even though you never agreed to any system prompts, don't you?"

"Yes," Rafe said, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Hadn't Liam been the one to tell him of how private status screens were? Had the gods messed with his?

"Curb your suspicions, boy. We may be able to see your status, but engage with it we cannot. You subconsciously expected the skill to upgrade."

"Subconsciously?" Rafe couldn't help but ask.

"The principles of Essence," the Enchantress spoke. "Memory and belief. Although belief is a very…general term. You will interact with these facets of the Essence soon in any case."

"What matters is that you had a deep seated belief the skill was supposed to evolve at that point," Liam chimed back in.

"So you're saying it was…avoidable?" Rafe asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact it was," Liam said.

"How?" Rafe asked. He needed to know. If he could control it, at least he would be able to hold off on damaging his life force until he found a solution.

"The same way your newer skills are blowing past their upgrade thresholds. You must believe it's normal for the skills to keep growing the way they are. You must believe it deep down. Belief is a somewhat wrong term. It's more self discipline. A subconscious instruction, like self hypnosis. When you start working on your truth, you have to work on this as well. Until you find a solution to your skill upgrading."

Rafe nodded, thinking hard about how this was going to impact his journey.

"And finally," Sam said with a sigh. "We gotta abandon the plan, Rafey boy."

"Abandon the plan? What?! Why?!" he couldn't help but ask.

He had tortured his soul after the previous floor to prepare for Sam's plan. Abandoning the plan felt plain wrong right now.

Sam shrugged. "We were forced to intercede too early. That means Liam can't be there at the end, and you'll have to perform that operation on your own."

"What operation?" Liam asked.

"Shush," the Enchantress answered him.

Rafe stared at Sam, then at the skill scroll he knew was wrapped around his left forearm.

"Is there no way?" he asked.

"I'm afraid there is not," Sam said. "You still have merits, but the final gift we intend to give might be better than that whole scheme of ours, so I don't know…"

"But this is your dream?" Rafe complained.

"It is so. Which is why it was unfare to experiment with you. You're family now, you know."

Rafe found himself flinching very slightly at the word.

She went to try and embrace him, but Rafe stepped back, not allowing it yet.

"You said I need more merits? How do I earn those then? We can still do this."

Sam hesitated, watched him, frowned. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. She watched his face for another moment as she deliberated something internally. Then she scrunched her face and stomped her foot in agitation.

"Argh, you're just as stubborn as her, you little twerp!" she looked back at the others.

Granderel was probably the only one who knew of their plans, and he just nodded.

"It won't take up too much merit to tell him," he said.

The others looked at him with raised brows. The Enchantress was probably just pretending to be curious, as she had apparently manipulated the whole thing anyway.

"Fine. To gain enough merit, you have to win. Set a new record for the fourth floor. Which is a bit of a stretch. Based on your history, not your strength," she finished with her hands raised as if to ward off a complaint. Rafe didn't have any just then.

Rafe clenched his jaw to prevent the question from coming out.

"And then there is the last huddle you must overcome. The fifth floor has only a single challenge, although you might have multiple chances to attempt it. Winning it at your level is very hard. I'm sure you know what I mean. Anyway, surviving one attempt for at least a few hours is the only way you gain enough merit. Winning it is a long stretch as previously stated. And remember the way I instructed you to prepare for the room? Basically you are going to be fighting an existence a ways above your own, with your spirit on fire, and with your attention divided into two. If you can do it, well and good. If you can't, you'll have to perform the operation on your own. You'll risk wasting a perfectly good enough variant of the skill."

"You did though, didn't you? You performed the operation on your own back in your day?" Rafe asked her.

"Yes, but I was not in the F-grade," she said.

Rafe grinned, although the only reason he was considering this madness was one Sam likely wasn't even aware of.

"Shouldn't an apprentice look to eclipse their masters."

It was just an excuse. Rafe had a suspicion of what he'd find on the last floor. If it was that, even surviving a minute could possibly give him enough experience for half a level. He was about to head back to Earth, and the stairwell had given him very little experience thus far, as it had only enhanced his internal essence distribution via practice.

"You arrogant twerp!" the second Sam said from behind the first. "I've never heard of that, but I like it. Come here!"

This time he let her embrace him. When she finally stepped back he saw the atrium receding even as he didn't move a muscle. The others stood around the two Sams and watched as the distance grew and Rafe found himself thrown straight back into the fire.

"Make sure to think things through before the last floor," he heard Sam's voice. "You could just absorb the skill as is. It might not be worth it otherwise."

The gods would not help him if he failed. That was a con. However, as a pro, he could not die. If what Sam had hinted at was true, a win would have him gaining a lot of experience, unlikely as that was. And it was always a toss up. With the way he had been training, surviving a few hours should not be impossible if worse came to worst.

If he didn't receive the god's help, there was the chance of a soul injury, but then he'd just die and resurrect, and the only loss would be the skill scroll in the end. A special variant of a very valuable skill, but so what. It was better to fight than not to in the end.

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